Dreaming of Reality
by Ainnenoi Aurum
Summary: For as long as he can remember, Edward Elric has dreamt of a world of magic.Now, in Lab #5, secrets are coming out, and a storm is coming.Lines will be drawn and sides chosen.At the center stands a gold-eyed alchemist.Or is it a green-eyed wizard? DARK!


I...scare myself sometimes. Most notably when I write, or when I am high off of sugar and oxygen. (Last time, I convinced myself that the florescent lights they use in schools are really a government tool, used to ensure that no children care enough to rise up against their tyranny. Yeah, I'm just special like that.) I don't know where this came from, and I'm not sure I want to, given my mind. I barely use a quarter of it, because the rest is a scary place. I do know that this is not going to be updated for a while because I have another plot bunny that's already almost 20k and I haven't really reached the main plot yet. But this is going to be my next project, for those of you who care.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter OR FullMetal Alchemist, and never will. unless I fall through a hole in time-space and land in the past and recreate one or the other. But how likely is that?

* * *

_Harry sighed as the cold musty air of the Scottish moors whipped around him, swirling his brown cloak around him. He was just so tired of the war. He had been fighting since he was one year old, and now, as in the beginning, he was alone as he finished it all._

_He had found legends of a forgotten rite that would remove Voldemort's soul from this world. It would drag Voldemort to the place of judgment, a place called the Gate of Truth. The gate would judge Voldemort and give him a just punishment for his deeds._

_The catch? The caster of the rite would have to go too. Harry didn't mind. After Hermione had betrayed his location to the Ministry's rabid dogs of hit-wizards, losing the then-seventeen-year-old man sight in his left eye and a good chunk of his left kneecap, Harry didn't really have anything left. Ron had already died at the hands of the Order, and Luna was lying comatose on a bed in St. Mungos after being tortured by the Ministry so they could harness her powers as a Seer without having to deal with the blonde woman. Fawkes, who had abandoned Dumbledore for him, had been killed by basilisk venom right after a Burning Day, the only time a phoenix was vulnerable. Hedwig was killed by a Killing Curse just after she had taken her title as Queen of the Sky._

_Harry brandished his wand in his left hand and began to chant, the twenty-year-old man's right arm having been rendered useless as a result of Ginny's betrayal. She had joined the Death Eaters, and her parting gift was taking a chunk of muscle from his shoulder._

"_Ter a alma que sempre prexudiciais, (Take the soul which has always harmed)_

_Leva-la para o local de xulgamento, (Take it to the place of judgment)_

_Leve-o para a Porta da verdade. (Take it to the Gate of Truth)_

_Libremente aceptado o castigo, (Freely I accept the punishment)_

_Por intromissão cos deuses, (For meddling with the Gods)_

_Leve-me con ser: VOLDEMORT!" (Take with me the being: VOLDEMORT!)_

_For a moment there was a deafening silence as if the world itself paused to hear the Gate's judgement. Then, a swirling purple portal appeared in front of him and black hands dragged him into the swirling black depths. Pain the likes of which Harry had never felt before engulfed him and, for once in his hard life, Harry screamed as he was pulled into the Gate of Truth._

_An eternity later, he was released and found himself standing in the middle of a vast nothingness. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Someone was watching him. He jerked around as quickly as his war-battered body could manage, trying to find the watcher. Harry froze as a chuckle emitted from at everywhere around him._

"_Very good, little wizard." __The voice was entirely emotionless as it echoed from both everywhere and nowhere._

"_Who are you?" Harry spat as he resumed motion, trying to find the originator of the voice. "What do you want with me? Where am I?"_

"_You should know, little wizard. After all, you did ask to be brought here."_

_Harry froze. "This is the Gate of Truth?" he asked._

"_Yes it is, little wizard. I am the conscience of the Gate. And you are the first person to willingly venture here while still alive in a multitude of aeons."_

"_What do you mean?" Harry asked, searching his person for his wand, even though he knew he wouldn't have it with him. "Wouldn't someone of my planet have to have come here for there to have been that ritual in that Egyptian city?"_

_The Gate chuckled. __"One of my masterpieces, I will admit. Every planet in the multi-verse has that ritual carved into it somewhere. It will only make itself visible in a time of true need. And never before has the ritual been found by someone such as yourself."_

"_How so?" Harry asked. "For all that I've been fighting since I was one year old, I'm really nothing special."_

_Again the Gate laughed. __"That is why you are special. Every other who has found the ritual has known full well that they aren't, as you put it, 'nothing special.' You are different. Despite all the hardships you have gone through, you still retain an innocent naivety. That is why you are going to receive a chance that no other being in the world has ever received. Once you are re-incarnated, as every soul is, you will slowly regain both your memories and the skills that were specific to your world, Lux Aeterna, Savior of Worlds."_

_With that, Harry's spirit was sucked backwards and, for the second time, Harry screamed. As he screamed, his memories were taken away from him and his voice became higher and shriller pitched until, finally, nothing remained of Harry Potter._

_Instead, there was a newborn child with green eyes that were quickly fading to gold being cradled by a tired and sweaty brunette with a blond man leaning over her shoulder. The woman looked up at the man._

"_Isn't he beautiful, Hohenheim?" she asked, eyes alight with joy as the tall blond nodded. "He looks just like you. What shall we name him?"_

"_Edward," Hohenheim decided. "Edward Elric. The protector. How does that sound, Trisha?"_

_Trisha Elric nodded as she began to droop to sleep. "That sounds lovely. Edward. What a lovely name."_

* * *

Fifteen-year-old Edward Elric, the FullMetal Alchemist, sat bolt-upright in his bed, gasping for air, golden eyes wide. That was... It confirmed what he been fearing for a long time, that Harry was him. The way they acted...it was too similar. All of a sudden, he realized that all of Harry's feelings about his life, bitterness over Sirius, sorrow for his friends and fellow Marauders, Hedwig and Fawkes, were also his and, at some level, always had been. He was Harry Potter, but he was also Edward Elric. He had two lives, but was only one person.

Al turned towards Ed, creaking slightly due to a lack of oil for his armor. "Are you alright, Brother?" Al asked, voice echoing tinnily.

Ed took a moment to calm himself down. Okay, so Harry was him. He'd known, somewhere in the back of his mind, for a long time. At least the Gate came through on its promise. And that did explain something he had wondered about for a long time. Why, when he was in the Gate, bargaining for his brother, did the Gate act like it respected him? Well, now he knew the answer to that question, didn't he?

"Y-yes," Ed answered after a moment. His voice did not sound wobbly there, goddammit! "I'm fine. Just a bad dream." He hated himself for lying to his brother, but his mother...Trisha that was, not Lily...had made him promise to never tell anyone about the dreams. They would lock him up, she had said. They would think him crazy.

"If you're sure," Al said dubiously.

"Well," Ed smiled, "now that I'm up, how 'bout we go back to cracking the code, huh? Today's the day, I know it!"

With that he rushed out of the room to wake up Ross and Bloch so they could get to work, all the while wondering if Trisha Elric had known exactly what was happening to him when he had told her of his dreams.

* * *

Ed couldn't believe it. His mind was completely numb. He had held a Philosopher's Stone as Harry, had saved it from Quirrel. Dumbledore had helped make it. Did that mean...? It-No, given what he knew about Dumbledore it _didn't _shock him that the old man had been willing to do such a thing, but still...

"NO!" he cried, "I understand. I understand why it's called the Devil's Research now! That's why Marco stopped his research!"

Al looked at his brother. "What is it, Brother?" Al asked, confused. Ed had been acting oddly all day, quieter but more fidgety than normal, and now he burst out yelling. What was going on?

"The Philosopher's Stone," Ed growled as he stared at the papers in front of him, wishing he was wrong, but knowing he was right, "the thing we have searched for for all these years...uses living humans as one of its components."

Ed's war-trained senses caught a quickly stifled gasp from outside of the door and knew that Ross was listening in, but he didn't care. Right now, he was filled with horror at what he had held in his hand when he was eleven the first time.

Al gasped, though it sounded rather empty through the metal. "No!" Al denied.

"Yes," Ed said, "it does. We can't...we can't deny that."

Ah, but how Ed wished he could. How he wished for the simpler times, before he knew that he had already saved one world, and would have to save this one too, for why else would the Gate call him Savior of World_s_? He wished he could be running home right now as his mother flashed a lantern from the second story. He wished he did not remember two ways that he had lost his arm, two ways he lost his leg and a halved vision due to his former girlfriend. He wished...that he could have been a child, rather than having to be an adult far too early, two times over.

* * *

"Brother...We'll find it! We're trying so hard! Even when people call you a dog of the military,-" And didn't that bring back painful thoughts of Sirius for Ed! "-or say you've sold your soul for the privileges-" What privileges? Mustang bitching them out? Yeah, lot of privileges that brought! "-you've come this far without giving up!" If only Al knew that it was only the dreams of Harry that had kept Ed sane in his worst moments, the knowledge that as bad as he had it, it could be worse! "So, we'll definitely find it, Brother."

Really, Al was much too naive, but that was mostly Ed's fault. He had tried so hard to keep Al from having to grow up as quickly as he did, in both of his lives, that Al still had the world-view of a child, rather than a fourteen-year-old.

"Brother. Let's start over from the beginning. Find a way to make the Stone without human lives being used. Let's try it. Together."

Ed growled. He was sick and tired of looking at the papers that symbolized his first descent into a soldier and that held the proof of his second life-consuming quest that was fruitless. In a fit of anger, he sat up and knocked the papers off of the table, accidentally throwing a teacup into his brother's face where it shattered. Ed's breath caught in his throat and, for all that his brother was just a suit of armor, Ed could _see_ his eyes widening and beginning to water at his older brother's actions.

The crash of the teacup induced Ross to come in, thinking Scar was in there and attacking the FullMetal Alchemist, ready for a fight.

"What's wrong?" the military woman barked, only to stop in shock at what she saw.

Ed sighed, laying back down, anger leaving him as quickly as it had come. "Forget it. I just don't want to see it anymore."

"Brother..." Al started as Ross started to pick up the scattered research papers.

"Are you satisfied with the answer?" Ross asked before Al could rend his relationship with his brother anymore than it already had been. "Will you regret stopping here? Won't you always wonder what you might have found if you had continued. Can the thing you have been searching for for four years really be forgotten that easily?"

Ed rolled his eyes, not that his guard could see it from where she was. Great, he'd gotten stuck with a younger, reincarnated McGonagall for his guard. Only, this time she was trying to scalp him with cat claws. "You don't know anything, so don't fucking talk like you do." _Nor does anyone else,_ Ed added silently. No one knew about the dreams. Trisha Elric had forbidden it.

"_Please, Edward. You must never tell anyone about the dreams. Not even your brother. It could lead to very bad things."_

That was what she had said, all those years ago. Never tell anyone. Words he had lived by all his life. And not just about the dreams. About most things. He got startled out of his reverie by Ross slapping him on the back of the head. Hard. hard enough that he fell out of the couch.

"OW! What the hell was that for!?" Ed demanded as he rubbed his head. The woman had not gone easy on him.

"For swearing at me. And for acting like an immature brat who is willing to forget his dream and his brother's dream because he ran into a small difficulty. You need to grow up and learn that an adult perseveres even when things get difficult." The infuriating woman smirked at him, knowing that she was right.

Ed's eyes flashed and Al winced. It was obvious that Ross had not ever met his brother before. Talking about growing up around him was a sure way to get cussed out. And probably beat up.

However, Al was in for a surprise as to why exactly Ed blew up. Now that he had accepted that Harry was a part of him, Ed wasn't quite so upset about his height. It was actually quite useful to be short when one had to be stealthy.

Ed fumed. How dare that woman call him, HIM, immature? She had no idea what he had gone through! He took the advice that the little voice that whispered in the back of his head that sounded like Fawkes, 'So why don't you tell her, Nyx? At least a little? She might get a clue.'

Ed only felt a little remorse as he completely blew up on the woman. She was the one who called him immature after all. His eyes flashed Killing Curse green in anger, though no one noticed, thankfully. "IMMATURE? SMALL DIFFICULTY?! YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH! NO ONE DOES! HOW THE HELL DARE YOU LECTURE ME ON IMMATURITY WHEN I'M PROBABLY MORE MATURE THAN YOU ARE!"

Ross arched an eyebrow. "Really. So, where is this maturity of yours, pray tell? Because I don't see it. I tell you what. If you can keep up with this search, I will admit that you are mature."

"FINE!" Ed roared, before realizing exactly what had happened. "Damn."

Bloch chuckled, actually speaking up for once. "That's Ross for you. As manipulative as Colonel Mustang, and better at keeping the person from realizing it."

Al killed the quickly developing peace by losing his helmet in shock. Ross and Bloch, having been briefed on the situation, did not panic. Ed sighed, picking up the helmet and setting it back on the body of armor.

"Br-Brother!" Al stuttered. "You didn't freak out about your height! I thought for sure..."

Ed frowned. "There was a jab about my height in there? Oh well, let's just get to work on this search that I have been re-roped into."

And out came the maps to search for a lab big enough to make the Philosopher's Stone.

* * *

"Damn it!" Ed hissed as he flipped backwards, narrowly avoiding the slash of Number 48's sword. "He's fast!"

Suddenly, the warehouse was lit up by two flashes of light, one right after another. One was the same green that Harry's eyes used to be, and the other the odd gold shade that Ed's eyes were now. Ed nearly froze, but his Seeker instincts, while untrained at this point in time, recovered quickly enough to catch the stick of wood that went flying through the air towards him as two streaks, one red, the other ivory white.

Fawkes swooped around Number 48, trailing his wings close enough to bring it up to near melting heat. Hedwig followed Fawkes' swoop with one of her own, freezing the armor fast enough that it shattered into many pieces.

Ed watched with stunned eyes as two of the beings he missed most from being Harry reappeared and dispatched his foe. It was almost enough to shut his brain down. Almost, but not quite. He was still aware enough to realize that the stick of wood that had arched towards him was his own wand, made of holly and Fawkes' feather with one of Hedwig's feather's spines transfigured to be a focusing jewel on the tip.

As Hedwig and Fawkes swooped in and landed on each shoulder, Ed realized that his two familiars had returned. He saw, but he didn't quite believe.

"Hedwig?" he whispered softly, not daring to break the moment. "Fawkes? How did my lovely, wonderful, most loyal friends ever find their way here, through time and space?"

Hedwig hooted, seeming confused by his hair, while Fawkes tapped his shoulder carefully, having landed on the right one,where he had an auto-mail arm. Their voices spoke in his head, as they had learned to shortly before Hedwig ascended, and then died.

_The Gate released us, Nyx. It said that you would need help in your quest, and who better to help you than the Phoenyx and the Sky Queen? Besides, we faced the Sidokana's agent together. We will need each other for the upcoming battle._

Ed laughed. "It was right you know. I don't know that I would have been able to survive the quest without you, my dearest friends. And you're right. I would never have survived the Sidokanad without you."

Suddenly, a war cry echoed through the building. Three heads snapped towards the direction Ed had come from.

"CRAP!" Ed screamed. "AL!"

_And who is Al, youngling?_ Hedwig asked, while Fawkes decided the interrogation could wait.

_What is this Al's full name, Flame,_ Fawkes asked, _and who is he?_

Ed nodded, grateful to Fawkes for noticing the urgency in his voice. "Al is short for Alphonse Elric, my brother, who is currently a soul in a suit of armor."

Hedwig bated backwards. _I think you have a lot of explaining to do._

Fawkes flamed the three of them to the location he could feel that one Alphonse Elric was at. Once there, both birds flew up and off of Ed's shoulders to allow him a greater range of motion.

"AL!" Ed yelled as he transmuted his auto-mail arm into a scimitar while brandishing his wand with his left hand. (It was a very good thing that the FullMetal Alchemist was left-handed, where Harry was right-handed.) "Be careful! He's like you!" And with that, Ed dove into the fight.

Ed had always had a melee style of fighting, whereas Harry was more of a distance fighter, although excellent with a curved blade. When they combined together, they formed one of the more deadly styles of fighting as there really was no weak point to it. You almost had to pity the armor he was up against. Especially since Ed had magic at his disposal.

Al froze at the sudden appearance of Ed in the middle of a fireball. As a result, he was taking quite a beating from the armor. Dents and cracks were appearing rapidly in his armor. Ed, seeing this, realized he had to get Al out of the skirmish.

"Shit!" Ed screamed as he lunged to the side, narrowly avoiding a slash from the mannequin's sword. "FAWKES! GET HIM OUT OF HERE PLEASE!"

_Can do._

Al jumped as a bird that looked like the tales of the mythical phoenix landed on his shoulder and gripped tightly. All of a sudden, he was ten feet down the alley and watching as his brother and his former opponent fought. Where had his brother learned to fight like that? It was a lot more graceful than Ed usually fought.

Ed hissed in pain as the broadsword crashed down on his auto-mail port. Sure, it didn't cut, but damn it hurt! However, the pain did not stop him from returning with a quick kick to remove the shin that knocked the armor-man to the ground, followed by a strike to the connection point between helmet and neck that essentially decapitated the armor-man. Quick as a flash, Ed used his wand to transfigure the head into a spider, which he then squashed beneath his feet.

A flare of white distracted him from his momentary glee at finding out that he could still do battle magic. Hedwig had decided that now was the time for interrogating her friend, therefore she had taken her more human form, the one she gained as the Sky Queen, as it was less taxing for her to communicate in words with it.

An ethereal gown flowed with the wings of a snowy owl that sprouted from the black-haired woman's back as she walked forward to lay a hand on Ed's shoulder. "Now, Nyx, I do believe it is time for a few explanations. For example," Hedwig twisted her hand to tug at Ed's braid. "why your hair has turned yellow. And what exactly you have done so far in this world."

As Al watched, stunned at the repeated casual disregard for the law of equivalent exchange, Fawkes flew up. Unlike Hedwig, he had no part human forms. Instead, the Phoenyx, King of the Flames, gained the ability to mix-and-match parts from all magical beings with an affinity for flame.

A cocoon of flame welled up and burst around him, revealing one of Fawkes' favorite forms, a man-sized black wyvern that could talk. "Master Flame greets Master Nyx on Marauder's honor. Master Flame swears to never reveal any secrets Master Nyx may reveal here, and to protect them from discovery like they were Master Flame's own." Fawkes dipped his head as he formally greeted Ed in the manner which only those who had never betrayed him knew of.

Ed returned the nod. "Master Nyx accepts Master Flame's greeting, and returns the Oath of Silence. Also, Master Nyx has one thing to say to both Master Flame and Miss Ice. There is no need to give proof as to their identity, as their rather spectacular entrance in the middle of Master Nyx's little sword practice. Master Nyx wishes to say one more thing. It is a full moon tonight and should not be setting until about an hour after dawn." At this point Hedwig, Fawkes and Ed grinned rather savagely at each other, having kept alive the ancient tradition of all rule-breakers who bore the name of Marauder, that of spending the night of the full moon outside together, and lifted their heads up, howling at the rising moon in an eerie concert.

* * *

Ross jerked her head up as a noise floated in the doors of the library where Scar had just run off from.

"Dammit," she cussed quietly. "that sounds like it's coming from Lab 5."

Bloch cocked his head. "How can you tell? We can't tell the direction it's coming from without going outside, and even then there is no way to tell the distance."

Ross smiled grimly as she began to walk, searching for one of the higher-ups in Colonel Mustang's office. "Do you remember the stories going around a couple of years ago about Lab 5?"

Bloch thought for a moment. "Do you mean the ones that said that it was being guarded by wolf-human chimeras?"

Ross nodded. "That's the one. You know that I'm a country girl? Well, we had wolves around my place, and at least one of those voices sounds like a damn big dog, similar, but not quite a wolf." She spotted Major Armstrong walking up the stairs. "Major Armstrong! Sir, I am afraid I have some bad news for you."

Major Armstrong continued up the stairs as he spoke, not turning around. "Very well, but first, where are the Elric brothers? Scar _is_ still out there, you know."

Ross looked down in shame for a moment before looking back up with determination burning in her eyes. "Major Armstrong, they are what my bad news is about."

Armstrong stopped dead on the stairs and turned around. "Tell me what it is."

"The Elric brothers are at the 5th Central Laboratory right now. And..." Ross looked slightly to the side. "the rumors of wolf-human chimeras? I think that, after the howling I heard just now, they will be resurfacing."

Armstrong stared at her. "Tell me the entire thing on the way. With the way Scar targets the Elrics, he will be going there too." Armstrong strode down the stairs with Ross and Bloch following as he began shouting orders to the room at large. "Someone get the Colonel on the phone and tell him that FullMetal and his brother are at Lab 5 and in danger on two fronts! And, for god's sake, HURRY! Tell him to bring as many of Arthur as possible. He'll understand."

* * *

Ed looked over at his brother, mind blurring slightly from the moon-fever. He had always gotten it on full moons, but never this bad. Maybe it was because he had accepted that he was Harry Potter as well? Ed didn't know, and at this point didn't care. Al seemed scared though. Ed didn't know why, but he knew that his little-big brother wouldn't be able to keep up with him for tonight at least. "Al. Stay here. I'll be back in the morning. Don't worry about me. I won't be in any danger, I promise."

With that, Ed tested the water a little, and tried to morph just his ears into that of his animagus, a giant fennec. The ears appeared, but so did a tail. Al shuddered and pressed back against the wall a little bit. Hedwig and Fawkes, both in their original avian forms, swooped around Ed and Fawkes caressed Ed's shivering ears with his wings.

_Try for the whole thing, Nyx. Just this once, I will put off my questioning for a while. _Hedwig, despite being both a queen and five years younger than him, acted as both a mother and a friend. Harry hadn't minded it in his last life, and Ed didn't now. He kept losing his blood mothers too early, and Hedwig was the next best thing.

Ed nodded, gasping at the pain in his head and lower back. He was dizzy from both the pain and moon-fever, but had enough clarity of mind to release himself to the fennec's instincts, making the transition fully for the first time in this body.

A steel-gray fennec the size of a wolf collapsed on the ground, shivering and whimpering with pain. Disbelieving hollow armor eyes watched as four flesh limbs twitched on the ground where one flesh leg and one metal leg had stood less than a minute ago. Slowly, the fennec got up as the twitching in his legs slowed down, but it didn't quite die down until the fennec had gotten his legs under him and was halfway down the street. Only then did a quietly whispered question pass through a metal visor as the inhabitant of the armor tried to understand just what exactly had just happened.

"Chimera?" echoed through the night as Alphonse Elric tried to understand just what his brother had just done and how he had done it.

Ed yipped as he and the two birds raced through the night, dancing and spinning together in an intricate dance that all three had missed while they were separated. Slowly, each of them released a tiny bit of their control over their element, letting fire, shadow and ice twine together and dance over the rooftops of the sleeping city. St. Elmo's fire. That was what they were creating as the elements danced that night. The fire with no source and an unearthly light. The full moon shone down on the city, both the three animals cavorting with a wildness not seen in cities very often, and on the cold gray building of Lab 5, which the military had just gotten to and found the still-stunned and injured younger Elric brother amidst the remains of a heavyset suit of armor.

"Al. Alphonse. Alphonse Elric. Can. You. Hear. Me?" Riza Hawkeye was standing right in front of Alphonse's immobile body, trying to snap him out of it, and failing miserably. Roy Mustang stepped up to try.

"Let me. Elric the younger! Get up and tell me what happened! Your older brother has gone missing! He could be in danger from Scar. Tell. Me. What. Happened." What it was in this statement that snapped Alphonse out of it was never known, but everyone knew it worked. Alphonse began to talk about what had happened.

"We had to come here to find the stone. No one else knows enough. That's what Ed said. We snuck out of the window and came here. The front was crisscrossed with wires, so we came around back. The only opening was a ventilation duct. Ed went through that. Then I waited for a long time. All of a sudden, a suit of armor like me appeared. He called himself Number 66, and he wanted me to fight him. Well, more like he wanted to kill me. So we started fighting.

"All of a sudden, Ed appeared in a burst of flame with a stick in one hand and a curved sword of auto-mail in the other. He had two big birds on his shoulders. One red, one snowy white. They took off when Ed yelled that the armor was 'like me' and then started fighting. I froze, and got hurt with a fireball from nowhere. It started ripping me up, like Scar did.

"Ed yelled something about 'get him out of there' and the red bird grabbed onto my shoulder, and I was ten feet away and watching as my brother decapitated the armor in about one minute. Then he took the stick that he was holding onto, muttered something while tapping the helmet, and it turned into a spider. It completely broke every rule of alchemy! The spider was less than 1/4 the size of the helmet! Equivalent exchange! There was absolutely no circle! Not even a clap! How...Why...It should be..."

Roy slapped Al's head off, and then stuck it back on. "Stay calm. We'll figure out what Ed did this time later. In the meantime, just tell us what happened as you saw it, okay?" Outwardly, Roy was calm. Inside, he was seething with curiosity about all the impossibilities Al had described so far. "Tell me the rest."

Al nodded, reaching up to fix his helmet, which was a bit crooked. "Thank you, Colonel, for snapping me out of that. So, after the spider appeared, Ed squished it. Then, the white bird, I think it was an owl, it turned into a human with wings! She stepped forward and talked to Ed. As long as I've known him, he's always had blond hair, but the woman-bird seemed to have known him with a different hair color, because she mentioned his hair 'turned yellow'. After that, the red bird became a reptile thing, just a little smaller than me. It nodded at Ed, and then said a lot of nonsense from someone called 'Master Flame' to 'Master Nyx'.

"And then, Ed responded from 'Master Nyx' to 'Master Flame' and he mentioned a 'Miss Ice'. He mentioned an 'Oath of Silence' and sword practice, though why would he practice with a sword in a place we had to sneak into? It doesn't make sense. And then he said that it was a full moon tonight. They all smiled at each other before looking up and howling. Even the birds.

"A moment later, Ed looked at me and told me to wait here. He promised he wouldn't be in any danger and be back in the morning. Then dog ears appeared on his head and he grew a tail. Why did he grow a tail? It obviously hurt him. How did he grow a tail? They were shivering and the red bird, they were birds again, brushed its wings against the ears and they stopped. Then Ed nodded at something I couldn't hear, and he became a dog-fox it looked like. He started twitching on the ground, I think he was in pain because of changing like that. He stood up on all four legs, did I forget to mention that he regrew his two missing limbs when he changed into that whatever-it-was? Well, he did.

"So, once he stood up, still in pain but walking, he walked to the end of the street, where he disappeared in flames, like he appeared, after grabbing onto the red bird's tail. What happened to my brother, Colonel? Is he a chimera, like Nina? Or is it something else that the military doesn't know about? Please, Colonel? He's my brother. I need to know what happened to him." Al finally finished his story, mildly hysterical. Then again, the military personnel understood. The boy _had_ just seen his brother turn into an animal.

* * *

In case you couldn't guess, Ed comes from a rather Dark HP-verse. One in which the war has been forgotten and all sides turned on Harry. Why I'm not sure, but figure Voldemort framed Harry for something, and everyone but a few of the Ministry Six turned on him.

I promise this will not die. The bunny is just asleep and waiting in line at the moment. Sorry, but it's nt getting continued for a while.

Yes, I did make Ed be able to regrow his limbs when he's in Animagus form. Simply because otherwise it'd be a _damned_ pain, trying to move around with only two limbs when his body is meant for four.

And yeah, Fawkes and Hedwig have magic and can talk to Ed. Simply because I felt like it, which is, quite frankly, the reason I put many of the things I did into this chapter.


End file.
